The amount of time kids spent on social media, mobile phones and video games wasn’t associated with more internalizing symptoms of mental health problems such as anxiety and depression, according to the study published Wednesday, June 18 in JAMA…
That time also wasn’t associated with more externalizing symptoms of mental health problems, such as rule breaking and aggression — or with suicidal behaviors or suicidal ideation.
What mattered was whether they were getting addicted. … Almost half the young people studied were on a high trajectory of addictive use for mobile phones, and over 40% were on a high trajectory of addictive use for video games, according to the researchers.
Kids with high or increasing use of social media and mobile phones were at two to three times greater risk for suicidal behavior and suicidal ideations than the kids on the lower trajectory, according to the study of over 4,000 US children over a period of four years.
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